


Duality

by kromi



Category: Tron (1982), Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-03
Updated: 2011-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:49:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/233944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kromi/pseuds/kromi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin Flynn wakes up as an all-powerful User/program hybrid after re-integrating with Clu, and Tron washes ashore, battling with Rinzler over control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duality

**Author's Note:**

> The vague Clu/Rinzler subtext in this fic is rather dubcon, so here's a fair warning.

The light devours him. There is pain, but it is soon gone as everything explodes outward.

 

 _01101110 01101111_

 

He feels as if he goes on forever, existing and non-existing at the same time in every point of time and space. Abstract does not even begin to describe everything he sees—no, "seeing" is wrong, he does not see or hear or smell or even really feel, he just _knows_ , and what he knows must be everything because it is unfathomable and mind-breaking. It goes on, or does it, because how can it when nothing is all there is? He has a faint recollection of self but it is just an idea, and trying to grasp it feels insignificant and useless: as if anything matters when nothing exists.

Yet he does.

He exists and he is a God, a Creator, and if he so wishes, there will be light.

Suddenly there is a digit, a lonely zero, and a one follows, and another, and another. He sees—knows—what must be the Grid, the source code, the base; zeroes and ones spreading out into the infinite in strings, twisting at every turn and filling that which is nothing. And it all comes back to him and he remembers and the world implodes.

Everything _is_ again.

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

Kevin Flynn wakes where the portal used to stand in the middle of the Sea of Simulation. He stands in mid-air, as if there is still a walkway beneath his feet. The portal is gone. There is nothing left of it, no hint that it ever even existed. The lights of Tron City gleam in the horizon, pulsing blue and white, proving the rest of the Grid seemingly untouched.

It takes a while, but he eventually remembers and when he does, he laughs until he's exhausted and gasping for breath.

Sam and Quorra. Clu. Re-integration.

The kids made it out alright, he presumes, but he doesn't know where Kevin Flynn ends and Clu begins.

He reaches out for an identity disc and is not surprised when he doesn't find one. Of course it wouldn't be that simple.

He sees the Grid in a way he didn't before. He sees right through the exterior into the source code: sees the zeroes and ones behind Outlands' crudely crafted landscape. He looks at his hands and sees the code behind _that_ , and it's not just binary, not just ACGT; it's much more complicated than that and despite his omnipotence he cannot quite make it out.

The Grid isn't far off from how he used to see it (since of course he knows the Grid and what's in the heart of it because he wrote it, all of it), but the way he sees it now is so perfect and so unnatural that it scares the part of him which wonders if he really is a human anymore.

The power that he holds over the Grid is now more than it ever was when he was Kevin Flynn or Clu. He doesn't feel that different from how he remembers feeling before re-integration, but does that memory belong to Kevin or Clu?

Laughing is about the only thing he can do right now. __

_01101110 01101111_

 

He washes ashore from the Sea of Simulation, barely functioning, the flicker of red, white, red, white the only evidence that he is still there. Obstinacy keeps him from shutting down completely: the only thing still running is his repair tool as it tries frantically to solve the puzzle that he has become and separate the original code from the one that was forced into him. Everything else was shut down when he crashed into the Sea of Simulation, or he terminated the command lines himself because Rinzler must not realize.

It's a mess.

He's Rinzler and he's not, he's Rinzler and he's not, and he cannot remember the other name, his other designation. That may be lost forever if no complete back-up of his old code exists, and he doubts it does, because… his User? Does he have one?

All he has is and all he had _was_ Clu, and all that is slipping away now as the repair scraps the information some ancient subroutine has deemed invasive and wrong; memories he knows he won't miss for even a fraction of a cycle.

Rinzler stirs and he knows he has to be silent, invisible: he knows Rinzler will notice eventually, but he needs to repair as much as he can before that happens. Rinzler is still too powerful: too many sequences of code are still under his control.

The repair peels off one layer after another to reveal broken pieces of code, tries to fix it and mend it back together again; sweeps one log after another for clues, timestamps scattered files, makes things fit. Most of it doesn't make sense: bits and pieces of old memory, old datalogs, commands for subroutines that do not exist anymore, all mixed up with Rinzler's. He doesn't know why the old code is still there; why it isn't completely overwritten by now. Maybe the former him was clever enough to create a command trigger somewhere deep, somewhere no one could find, knowing that one day it could set him free. Maybe the invasive code never got that deep, just overwrote all the vital functions but left memory intact.

Most of it has been of course overwritten during all those cycles and he has to keep some of Rinzler's code to stay functional, and he is scared because all that Rinzler is clashes with whatever he is trying to dig out of his systems. He detests Rinzler— _himself,_ he doesn't even know; and the more the repair reveals, the more intense the feeling grows.

That one familiar face shows up a lot: it's all over Rinzler's memory, but the more layers the repair peels off, the more it reveals of that exact same face. But their memories are different. Very different.

It was a very clever trigger.

Kevin Flynn could have just as well floated out of the Light-jet's cockpit, plunged both of his hands into the chest of what was Rinzler and pulled that string of code out for him to see. The effect would have been the same.

Kevin Flynn.

Clu.

Rinzler finally gains control, realizes what is happening and has no other choice but to shut him down. Rinzler is afraid, almost hysterically so.

He falls unconscious there, the gentle waves of Sea of Simulation lapping at his feet.

 

 _01101110 01101111_

 

He walks across the Sea of Simulation towards Tron City. No need for a solar sailer, no need for a bridge: he just walks, his bare toes grazing the waves. He noticed he is able to create new code from nothing and when he descended and took the first step into the Sea and connected with the surface but didn't sink, he felt like he is cheating in a videogame. It is not clever use of game mechanics, it is hacking; straight-out use of god mode. He used to be able to control—even cheat—the Grid from within because he knew how it worked. He knew all the backdoors and loopholes he had left there or just plain forgot to fix, but no matter how far his insight about the Grid's inner workings reached, he couldn't create code out of nothing. He couldn't wield the sort of virtual magic that he now practices with just a wave of his hand, a blink of an eye; a simple _thought_.

It scares him but it also makes him excited, because the power, the _freedom_ is overwhelming.

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

The torn program still lays washed-up on the shore of the Sea of Simulation, drifting in and out of activity with the dim, tired flicker of red, white, red, white marking the periods when he stays on. Rinzler doesn't let him run repairs anymore, but Rinzler cannot repair either and so he remains in a stalemate: confused and half-complete; determined and afraid.

During one moment of activity (another endless feud over control), he sees a man walk on top of the waves towards the shore.

As the man gets closer Rinzler recognizes him as Clu, the nameless program inside him recognizes him as Kevin Flynn, the User, and in his urgency he finds the strength to shove Rinzler away. He silences Rinzler and cuts him off and he's again running on minimum functions, but it has to be done: Rinzler cannot have a say in this.

"Flynn", he calls, his voice hoarse. He catches the surprise and subsequent recognition on Flynn's face as he turns.

"Well I'll be damned," Flynn says, mouth cracking into a grin that is part relief and part familiar wryness. "Tron."

The nameless program manages a smile before Rinzler forces him into shutdown.

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

He is torn, twirling an identity disc idly in his hands and watching the broken half-complete program toss in his fitful sleep. He sees the frayed code of Rinzler on top and the remains of Tron underneath it (he doesn't even need the disc to check the damage), all broken and incomplete and spliced together in places and he knows he cannot fix them. He can fix anything, _everything_ but not this: he cannot make memories out of nothing and without their memories both Rinzler and Tron would be like any other program out there. Nothing would make them special, and to Clu and to Kevin Flynn both of them are precious. One a skillful warrior and a pet; the other a protector and a friend.

It is also an ethical choice he cannot make as it is not up to him to decide which one gets destroyed, or reverted back to the factory settings, as it were. That is selfish, and as a Creator he has to be selfless.

That really put a damper on his newfound freedom. The Grid is under his command in its entirety and he could do anything he ever wanted, create worlds, _anything_ , and he finds himself wanting just one thing; the one goddamned thing he cannot do.

Rinzler would be easy to save and to reprogram: Clu knows him because Clu repurposed him, but Tron… Kevin Flynn did not write Tron. Of course he knows his code like the back of his hand: all those cycles spent together, all those nights spent rewriting small parts of his code to update him for the Grid and its more contemporary hardware, but he never, _ever_ touched his base programming. Alan's work was too perfect to warrant interfering and Tron was perfect just the way he was. And without his memories, everything that makes him Tron, he would be just another security unit.

A backup of Tron exists, made just before Clu's coup. Back then he was planning to use those exact files to get Tron back and stabilize the system, but he never could as the portal closed and he got stuck inside the Grid. Those backup files are of course separate from the Grid's isolated system and he cannot access them from within.

It is most aggravating to know that the salvation exists, but is out of your reach.

Another solution would be an ISO but they are all gone.

Clu wants Rinzler and Kevin Flynn wants Tron, but he cannot save them both and he is torn.

Tron (or maybe Rinzler) stirs and the lights flicker dim white, then red, then white again. He shifts a bit with a grunt and cracks an eye open, squinting in the light.

"Hey, man," Flynn says and places his hand on the program's shoulder, giving it a reassuring pat.

The program groans. "Is Rinzler—?" he asks, reaffirming that it is indeed Tron in control this time.

"He's here. There. I'm sorry, man," Flynn says and means it, squeezing Tron's shoulder.

Tron closes his eyes. "Glad… to see you," he says.

"You too."

"Thank you for—" Tron starts, but breaks into a gasp. "I don't—" and then there's a strange whirring sound, almost like a purr, and the program opens his eyes again and now it's Rinzler, duty-bound and seething mad. It looks like he has to spend a great deal of effort to even be able to move, but he finally manages to grab Flynn's arm, and his hold is vice-like and desperate. The lights on his suit pulse violent red.

"Sir, you need to end it," Rinzler snarls, eyes wide with terror.

"I'm working on it," Flynn replies coolly and pries Rinzler's hand off of his arm. "Unfortunately I can't get rid of him him without destroying you."

" _No_ , this needs to—" Rinzler never gets to finish, he just gasps suddenly and his eyes roll back into his head. The lights flicker off and he is blissfully inactive.

Flynn sits still for a moment just staring at the broken program, then sighs deeply and stands up. He walks to the window and leans against it, placing his hand against the cool glass. Lights dance underneath his fingers, blossoming into beautiful fractals and covering the view of the distant Tron City and the sharp cliffs of Outlands.

 

 _01101110 01101111_

 

In time Kevin Flynn starts to recognize the parts of him that are definitely Clu. He is rather certain that he is himself and Clu is just a part of him on some very subconscious level—if words like "subconscious" are even accurate anymore—but still strong enough to influence him. He is still proud of Clu: no matter how wrong he went, he had good intentions and he never stopped following his primary directive. Everything Clu did was because of Flynn's own shortcomings: he was the one who programmed Clu and it was his mistake, his hubris, to expect that a program, no matter how perfectly coded, would be able to follow the complicities of human ethics. Clu was all black and white with no gray areas in between, trying to create the perfect system without compromises.

But Kevin Flynn sees the gray areas and now Clu sees them as well, and he's learning. Now he knows where he went wrong. The possibility of a perfect system looms in the nearby future and it makes Flynn (and Clu) exhilarated.

The only thing they don't agree on is Rinzler, and Kevin Flynn is starting to detest Clu for what he did to Tron; for perverting a loyal friend and guardian into a single-minded slave. The impersonal way Clu still regards Rinzler with sends shivers down Flynn's spine. Programs do not function like people, like their Users, and what Kevin Flynn feels for Tron is something Clu cannot even begin to comprehend, much like Flynn cannot grasp the bond Clu and Rinzler share.

The broken program still lays on the bed, mostly inactive, but sometimes he stirs and calls out to Flynn.

Flynn takes Tron's hand into his and holds it tight and Tron smiles tiredly and says Flynn should let go already; it's over. Rinzler tries to hold on to him, always desperate and panicked, telling Clu to end it.

Flynn always says no, and so does Clu.

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

"Take a look at this," Sam Flynn says and leans to the side to allow Alan better view of the monitor.

Alan looks at the monitor, his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat and wearing the sort of exhausted "yes, I've seen this" look on his face. Then he notices what Sam means, leans a tiny bit closer and his hands come out of the pockets. He fixes his glasses and stands up straight again, hands on his hips.

"What exactly am I looking at here?" he asks slowly and gestures towards the monitor.

"You tell me," Sam says and spins around in his chair to face Alan. He is chewing on a black Encom ballpoint pen. "It's the Grid. The one dad wrote."

Alan furrows his brow, looking unbelieving. "I've seen parts of it before, that is no—"

"No Grid, I know!" Sam says and spins back towards the monitor, hands on the keyboard and typing madly. "I mean it _is_ theGrid, but it's so weird, it's no code I've seen before. It's…" he taps his fingers on the keys and brings up another window where lines of code appear in breathtaking speed. He points at the monitor, turning back to Alan. "It's _writing itself_ , Alan."

Alan just stares. "That's impossible."

"No," says Quorra suddenly from the other end of the room where she is sitting on a desk with a laptop on her thighs. She turns the laptop around to show a command prompt window and her face is all lit up with joy and mouth curled into the widest of smiles. "It's Flynn," she says.

 

 _01101110 01101111_

 

Alan listens patiently through Sam and Quorra's outlandish story about the Grid and Kevin Flynn spending the last twenty years inside a computer system and apparently dying from re-integrating with a rogue program he created in his own image, and how Quorra's not a girl Sam just "met one day at Starbucks" but a program called an ISO (an "isomorphic algorithm"), and she's from the Grid too.

He likes to think it's an early April Fool's joke or Sam just pulling his leg for fun—he's used to that—because it sounds so unbelievable, but the kids look so serious he starts to think if it's even remotely possible. He remembers Flynn going on and on about the Grid, but in the end Flynn never told him much. Alan just brushed it off to Flynn's capricious nature: the man was far from secretive but at times Alan had no idea what Flynn was going on about while wearing that wide grin and resorting to the sort of techno jargon you could expect from a videogame-loving manchild genius. What if he actually made it into his Grid?

He was also always a bit amazed by how good Quorra was with computers: he is never going to forget that day Sam marched into his office Quorra in tow, and told him that he needed to hire her. Alan was amused, but Sam sat Quorra down and she got out her laptop and in fifteen seconds she was inside Encom's secured network. The next moment every single machine in the network started looping some Daft Punk song and Alan's email had flashed a new mail from Quorra with the entire source code for Encom OS-13 (still in development; encrypted and kept on Alan's private server) as an attachment. She had turned to him with a cheeky grin on her face just as Edward Dillinger Jr. had crashed into the office looking furious and complaining that every image file on his computer had suddenly turned into a "lolcat".

"She can do some government secrets for you if you want," Sam had said with a nonchalant shrug and Alan had laughed and raised his hands. Quorra was hired.

And her being a… _program_ herself certainly explains that.

"I know it's probably hard to believe, hell, I really wouldn't believe it if I hadn't been there, but—" Sam is trying to explain, but Quorra cuts him off, looks at Alan and offers him her laptop.

"Flynn wants to talk to you," she says.

Alan takes the laptop apprehensively and doesn't really know what to think when the command prompt window flashes a new line that says "hey alan, man, how's it goin?! how's lora and the kid?"

"Hi," Alan writes back hesitantly because he still believes it's just some elaborate prank. It has to be. He's talking to long-missing Kevin Flynn through CLI like it's some sort of instant messaging program, an AIM from the eighties. It has got to be a joke.

"i know this is some whacked-out crazy shit but u gotta do somethin for me man"

"Anything."

"is there a chance that my old encom work computer still exists?"

"It's been twenty years, Kevin."

"yeah but does it exist?"

Alan leans back, closes his eyes and squeezes the bridge of his nose hard.

"I don't know, maybe it was taken to storage."

"well if it ain't too much to ask could u please check. it's about tron, he's sorta in trouble."

 _Tron_. If it is a prank it is a masterful and particularly evil one. He remembers that specific quirk of Kevin's well: he had a habit of referring to computer programs with animate third-person pronouns.

Alan looks at Sam, who still looks serious, if a bit excited, and Quorra is picking at her nails absent-mindedly like there's nothing strange going on at all.

"If it's about Tron, you know I have all of its files, I can get them for you."

"don't u think i'd ask u for the files if it were that easy? i need the latest backup i had of him, nothin else will do."

"Fine, alright," Alan writes back.

"i love u man."

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

"It's busted," Sam states the obvious and wrinkles his nose in frustration in a way that Alan thinks is amusingly familiar. He keeps poking at the on/off button although it has been clearly established that the two-decade-old computer doesn't work beyond the ancient Encom OS startup screen.

They had checked out the storage and it turned out there was a small treasure trove of a corner dedicated to Flynn's old stuff: several dusty boxes sealed off with peeling packing tape with "FLYNN" scrawled on top with a black sharpie, his old desk, archive cabinets and yes, even his old, desk-like computer. Alan supposes most of the stuff in the cabinets and boxes is work-related, since he remembers quite clearly the day Flynn's parents came to claim the personal belongings their son had for one reason or another kept at the office.

Sam had gone curiously through the desk's drawers and pulled out a cheap photo frame, and his face had turned serious and subsequently blank as he looked at the picture of maybe five-year-old him on his father's shoulders, laughing and hanging onto Kevin's hair. He had put the frame back where he had found it and closed the drawer, but Alan knows he'll come back for it.

They had taken the computer and dragged it back upstairs to Sam's office.

Dusted off, plugged in, and the machine froze at startup.

"I'll have our hardware people take a look at it tomorrow," Alan says and gives Sam's shoulder a reassuring pat.

Quorra is still sitting on the desk, laptop perched on her thighs. "Flynn says you don't have to get it running. You just need to connect the Grid to it," she says.

"How do we connect a flash drive to it?" Sam moans. "Ask him that. Wonder if he even knows what a USB port is."

"Don't tell me the Grid is self-sustained," says Alan, frowning.

"Of course it is," Sam replies, like it's obvious. "Don't ask me how. It's dad's doing, I bet, some crazy virtual voodoo."

"Flynn asks what's a flash drive," Quorra informs them.

"Tell him to Google it."

"He asks what's Google."

Alan sighs. "Grant the Grid internet access, but don't let it into our network."

"Uh," Sam says and looks difficult. "Bypassing Encom firewalls and hacking the system was the first thing he did when I plugged the Grid in. He's been in the network for quite awhile."

Alan stares. "And it didn't cross your mind to tell me? Why didn't you run the Grid in a sandbox or on a machine that is _not_ in the network?"

"Yeah, well," Sam says and flashes Alan an apologetic grin. "Thankfully dad's not a virus."

Quorra's fingers dance on her laptop's keyboard, then stop abruptly. "He says to copy kevinflynn.exe from the Grid's root directory to a 'floppy disk' and just stick it in."

Sam looks at Alan with a strained expression. "Please tell me we have a computer with a USB interface and a working disk drive."

 

 _01101110 01101111_

 

"What are you?" Sam asks at some point and Flynn stops to think. He's not a human anymore, but he isn't a program either: he is something much more. He is an integral part of the Grid, a benign anomaly in the source code; blessed with the insight and spontaneity of a User and the analytic prowess and efficiency of a program. He doesn't know, not really. Sam asks if he should go back to the arcade's basement and see if he could fix the laser, but Flynn doesn't think it's a good idea. Not yet anyway. He needs to build a new portal first and furthermore he doesn't have an identity disc anymore. He hasn't yet figured out an alternative way to get out: trying to enter the portal without a disc that contains the exact right coordinates to the point of origin would be like trying to send an email without knowing the recipient's address: completely pointless.

He's in no hurry to leave the Grid, although Clu is absolutely exhilarated for the possibility of getting outside. Flynn doesn't know if anything good could come out of it. How could real world ever live up to what is essentially a godhood? Although he does not know for sure how his powers of virtual creation translate into the real world (he can see the "code" behind his self, so maybe he could see the code behind real world as well? While he still can't make out anything of the mess he sees when he looks at his own hands, it is quite possible that if he studies it he could begin to understand) and the prospect of being a god outside the Grid makes him giddy, he does not wish to risk it. Clu could be in for a disappointment, and Flynn doesn't trust himself enough to believe that his influence could have stripped Clu of his megalomaniacal tendencies, especially since what spawned those tendencies in the first place _was Flynn himself_. Unleashing Clu into the real world could be the worst mistake he ever made.

Also he does not miss the real world at all, but he doesn't say it.

Sam says he misses him.

Flynn apologizes.

Quorra understands, and says the real world still confuses her sometimes. The way everything functions is so different.

Alan is cautious, careful, and it doesn't surprise Flynn in the slightest. He never told Alan what happened with the MCP; never told him why exactly he needed Tron, just said that he's the best security program he's ever seen and that he wished to use him for the Grid, this awesome revolutionary new system he was designing.

Alan wouldn't have believed him back then and Flynn has a hunch he doesn't believe him now, but at least Alan plays along and it's enough for him.

Quorra asks him about Alan. She remembers Tron, of course she does, she is clever and remembers a lot, even though she was scarred by Clu's coup and the genocide and admits to have forgotten a lot of things before that. She remembers this security program Flynn and Clu used to hang out with, and that program looked a lot like this human Alan. Is there a connection?

Sure, Flynn admits, there is a connection. See, Alan wrote Tron originally. Alan is his User.

And from that and a couple of off-handed conversations they had while hiding out in the Outlands cycles ago, she knows. She _is_ clever. Flynn never liked talking to her about romance: she read his books and because the whole concept of love is completely alien to a program by default, she kept wondering about the bond that the main characters shared in some of the books. Flynn tried to explain, failed gloriously each time, and told Quorra to read something else. Thankfully she enjoyed Jules Verne much more than anything with a romantic subplot, but her curiosity for humanity was not so easily sated.

"don't tell him," Flynn warns her. "not that it matters much since i'm pretty much stuck here and this stuff is decades old and not worth the trouble, but it would probably make him pretty upset. it's also much more complicated than it looks. these things are not always as simple as they can be in books."

"It just sounds so sad!" she writes to him. "Maybe he deserves to know, especially if you're stuck there. Except you're not since I and Sam will get you out! Count on it!"

Flynn knows it, but he is perfectly content in staying in the Grid for the time being. He recalls the last time he was outside the Grid, before the coup, and all he remembers is how much he wanted to go back. After getting stuck inside the first few cycles he spent despairing over never getting to see the real world again, of course. Never eating a hamburger again. Never seeing the sun, or the stars, or feeling the wind on his face when he drives down to the arcade again.

Never holding his son in his arms again.

And that was over twenty years ago. Sometimes you just let go.

"quorra."

"Yes?"

"don't tell him. and don't tell sam, he wouldn't understand."

"Okay. If that is what you want."

"it's exactly what i want."

Quorra drops the subject, thankfully, and continues sending him links to internet pages that she says are "awesome" or "epic".

The internet is vast and horrible and very entertaining: Flynn enjoys Minecraft, building an exact duplicate of the Grid for shits and giggles, and man, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is some rad shit. He catches up with the last two decades during the cycles he just sits next to the bed, waiting, and watching Tron and Rinzler fight their battle; red, white, red, white.

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

The program formerly designated as Tron stirs again, cringing in pain, as always. His memory is muddled and he barely registers his surroundings as the very same place he has awoken in a couple of times during what his failing internal clock perceives as several cycles.

Creating new data is difficult if not impossible considering the haphazard state of his memory, so he's taken to using buffer memory whenever he comes to, opting to keep what little is left of him read-only. The biggest risk is that if he reboots completely instead of just going to sleep he will lose all the data stored ever since he awoke on the shore. It's still better than to overwrite and potentially destroy anything of what he has already uncovered beneath Rinzler's invasive code.

He recognizes dark walls, white opaque floors, the soothing sound of moving water; comfortable, familiar, safe.

He feels Rinzler, but he's inactive—for now—and Tron is blissfully himself. Or what is left of him.

And Kevin Flynn sits next to him, as always, elbows on his knees and fingers steepled together under his chin, staring out at the lights of Tron City, gleaming bright beyond the everlasting darkness of Outlands.

"Hey," he says, as always, when he notices that Tron is awake.

"Hey," says Tron back. Not much else he can say. He admires Kevin Flynn's persistence: if it wasn't for him, Tron would have shut himself—and Rinzler—down for good cycles ago, back when he realized there was nothing he could do. His repairs are inadequate, and Rinzler is looming, much too powerful. Kevin Flynn is the reason he still hangs on. If Kevin Flynn tells him to hang on, he will, and not just because it's an order from a User.

"Good news," says Flynn and he sounds genuinely excited. "We're gonna get you fixed."

Tron chuckles. "That's what you've been saying for—"

"I know!" Flynn interrupts him and sits up straight. "But this time, they've got your backup, man. It's _this_ close."

"Okay," Tron says.

"It's gonna be okay." Flynn's smile is reassuring, even if it has a strange edge Tron can't read. A User thing, perhaps, maybe something he understood once, but that particular memory has been overwritten cycles ago.

Flynn leans over him and Tron closes his eyes. He still remembers this, coincidentally, amongst so many corrupted and overwritten memories, and he's happy that he remembers and knows what it means. He thinks he doesn't mind losing all those other memories as long as he can keep this. Flynn's lips brush gently over his: he feels Flynn's warm breath against his cheek, and Flynn's rough beard tickles and stings. He shivers when Flynn draws away and settles back into his chair.

"Goddamn," Flynn says and chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest. "Man, look at me. Age makes me so sentimental."

"I don't mind," says Tron.

Flynn chuckles again and a grin splits his face; makes friendly creases appear at the corners of his eyes. "I know."

 

 _01101110 01101111_

Walking the simple planes of the system he used twenty years ago feels nostalgic in a way that is almost laughable. He never thought he'd miss its simplistic structure and the archaic code beneath the irregular, sleek shapes that make up the landscape. He sees a dozen loopholes with a single glance: some of them he remembers and knew how to utilize as Clu and some he never even realized existed. He cringes at how poor and simple the whole system is, but has to laugh at it: to think how long a way technology has come from it. Even the Grid is dated in its execution, but Flynn has grand plans: amazing, ground-breaking plans to make the Grid match the present information technology. All the things he learned from the internet! _Terabytes, man!_

And there he was thinking that the Grid's original size was somehow huge, gigantic even; needed a cutting-edge hardware to support it. Most of that space was of course vacant: he left the Outlands and the Sea of Simulation there if Tron City ever needed to grow. The Outlands seem limitless, but he knows (now) that eventually the memory would run out. While he entertained the thought of seeing what was beyond the Outlands, beyond the Grid (because that is what spawned the ISOs), he knew it could have catastrophic consequences if anything ever reached that limit. Like what happens when you try to read memory from a block that doesn't exist? The system would hang up, right?

But with terabytes… he could make the Outlands virtually limitless. He could make ISOs appear again.

The thought is exhilarating.

He wanders the system for a while although he knows exactly what he's looking for and has a good enough picture of where to find it. The system is powerless—the only power is Flynn himself, activating the system as he goes—and the programs are asleep: nothing moves and the Recognizers let him pass (but they would either way because he is Clu). Only the dim light of the active I/O tower pulses lazily in the horizon, connecting the Grid to the old system.

He finds Tron easily and isn't too surprised to find Yori next to him, her head resting against his shoulder. He can't help but smile at first, but after a moment the smile turns into a frown as he kneels down and reaches for Tron's identity disc. He is so selfish.

He could have always taken Yori to the Grid as well, Tron would have liked it. He never did, dismissed it with an offhanded comment when Tron wondered if Yori would like the Grid. "Sure, man, she'd love it."

He's still not sure if he didn't take Yori along because looking at her was so painful, or because in the end he didn't want to share Tron with anyone. Not even with her. Or especially. The whole thing had very unfortunate implications outside virtual worlds, and Flynn was happy to keep it all inside computers and his own head. He still finds it tragicomic, and when he thinks about it, even now, he doesn't miss the real world one bit.

He reconsiders now if he should take Yori along, holding Tron's identity disc in his hands and checking the code if it is the one he wants and needs. He could take her disc as well. She would need rewriting and updating, of course, but it would be easy. Copy whatever exists of programs like her in the Grid already, just keep her memories and functions and designation; keep her, well, _Yori_.

But it would play out like the real world again and he would be the third wheel, again, and Flynn prefers the virtual way of things. It is less complicated and less unfair and he _can_ be selfish and petty because the Grid is his domain and programs don't work like humans: Tron and Yori are nothing like their User counterparts apart from physical similarities and whatever parts of personality reflect from their source code.

He makes a copy of Tron's identity disc and slides the original back to its place. He stands back up, looks at the peacefully slumbering couple and starts his long journey back to the I/O tower.

For good part of that journey he tries hard not to feel so guilty.

 

 _01101110 01101111_

 

The closer he gets to his hideout in the Outlands, the more hesitant he grows.

 _I could go back outside_ , he catches himself thinking, and the following train of thought reeks of desperation. He could ask Sam to go back to the arcade and ask Alan to bring Lora to fix the laser: she worked on it and she must still know how it works better than Flynn ever did. He could build a new portal just like that: they could send Sam down to the Grid, and they could all go back with his point of origin known. He could be with Sam again and Alan would surely be so happy to see him he would welcome him with open arms—

With that Flynn realizes that the thoughts are not _his_ and anger boils inside him. He cannot believe how Clu could still try to betray him, even now. He thought they were partners again, together in this: how _could_ he try to manipulate him?

 _Because I know I don't want to destroy Rinzler._

And he is _right_.

He's home, stands in the middle of the room with the milky white floor beneath his feet and the copy of Tron's identity disc in his hands and he doesn't want to destroy Rinzler. His grip of the disc is so hard he fears he might snap it in half. Maybe he is even trying to.

He remembers fearing Clu the moment when he turned on him so many cycles ago, and remembers fleeing with his heart in his throat. He never feared him after that, even when Clu ruled the Grid with an iron fist and he was just an aging man hiding in the Outlands with the brave girl who was the last of her kind and equally unafraid. He didn't fear Clu even when he threatened his son, and while he feared death, he had never been so certain of anything as he was when he saw that re-integration was the only way.

He was at peace when he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

But now he fears Clu, because he sees himself reflected so well, all his doubts and regrets and shortcomings are there and it is simply frightening.

The broken program is sleeping still, blissfully unaware.

"What am I going to do?" Flynn asks no one in particular.

 _Delete Tron_ , whispers Clu, a vague voice inside his head, like a conscience gone bad, _I don't need him, I never did. Everything is better outside; everything is_ real _, isn't it? The program is just the second best—_

"No!" he says strictly and thinks _used to be_. During the twenty years he spent inside the Grid he didn't stop to miss Alan, not once, but the amount of sleepless nights he spent because his best friend was taken from him amounts to a count he doesn't even want to think about. Finding out what Clu had done to Tron made his blood boil, and then it made him sad, and it still does, and he cannot even think about Rinzler without feeling revulsion. The real world is _nothing_ to him.

 _What about Sam?_ says the voice inside his head, triumphant.

He sits down on the chair next to the sleeping program and clicks open the identity disc. The swirling double helix of Tron's code flickers into view with a soft hum, and Flynn just stares at it.

The program shifts, the lights on his suit blink tiredly, and Tron opens his eyes. He looks at Flynn, then at the slowly rotating segment of code, and a smile rises to his face: not dejected and tired like before, but full of relief.

"You found it," he says.

"Yeah," Flynn admits, and the segment of code fades and disappears as he sets the disc aside. Confusion flits across Tron's features and Flynn sighs. "I'm sorry, man."

Tron says nothing, but his mouth sets into a serious line.

"I was gonna," Flynn starts, but breaks into a frown, and he has no idea what to say. "But it's Rinzler and I can't just, y'know, get rid of him. He's useful."

"I understand," Tron says.

"Come on, god dammit," Flynn says. "This ain't exactly easy."

"No, I understand," Tron repeats. "As a User that is your choice."

Flynn turns away. "I don't know what I want."

It is very silent in the room for a moment, and then Flynn hears the familiar whirr, and when he turns back to the broken program, Rinzler is fighting to sit up. His arms shake violently while trying to support his weight, and the lights of his suit burn insanely bright red.

"Sir," he hisses.

"We're going to win," Flynn says, watching Rinzler grasp futilely at his identity disc. It comes off eventually and Rinzler brandishes it like a weapon. He looks at Flynn and the fear is gone from his face, replaced with grim determination.

While Flynn sees everything in the Grid, Rinzler's intent is so spur of the moment and unexpected that he can hardly catch it, and so he just barely manages to dodge the disc as Rinzler sends it flying with a trained flick of his wrist. His aim is sloppy but Flynn doesn't know if it's intentional or not, and yet he still has to duck to the ground as the disc whirls past dangerously close to his head and lodges into the wall behind him. He's down on all fours and watches with dawning dread and triumph as Rinzler lunges with what must be the last of his strength towards Tron's disc. He catches it with both hands.

"I'm sorry, sir," Rinzler says and slides the identity disc into its place. The click it makes is deafening in the silence and Flynn watches with an indescribable emotion between horror and relief as Rinzler's eyes roll back and he reboots.

 

 _01111001 01100101 01110011_

 

Tron has forgotten a lot after Clu's coup and his repurposing. He remembers some things and cringes at some painful, awful memories Rinzler left in his wake, but realizes to look at them with a newfound respect after Flynn tells him everything, including everything that happened after Tron crashed into the Sea of Simulation. The last thing he remembers is how Clu wrenched the Light-jet's control rod from his hands, and he thinks he understands why Rinzler did what he did.

They sit out on the balcony watching over the Outlands and distant Tron City. Flynn seems reluctant while he recaps the last few cycles and Tron has a feeling he is not telling him everything. No matter: he trusts Flynn either way.

Flynn laughs bitterly when Tron tells him so.

"That's a bad idea if I ever heard one," he says. "Clu almost had me there. If it wasn't for Rinzler you wouldn't be here. I'd be building a new portal and getting the hell outta here with Rinzler in tow."

"Don't you want to go out?" Tron asks. "You're a User."

Flynn drapes an arm over Tron's shoulders and pulls him closer. He's warm and familiar and while Tron knows it's been countless cycles since the last time they were together, he is glad that to him it doesn't feel nearly that long.

"Nah," Flynn says. "The Grid needs work."

"You have a son. Don't you want to see him again?"

"I just did," Flynn says and there's a note of annoyance in his voice. "He's… oh man I wish you could meet him. You'd love him, he's perfect."

"The Grid will remain here," Tron says, not so easily mislead. " _I_ will remain here, you know that. Your son won't be there forever."

"I know," Flynn sighs, and his face goes serious. "I know. Maybe someday."

"I'll help you," Tron offers.

"Of course." Flynn turns his head and kisses Tron gently on the forehead. Tron shifts closer, seeking a more comfortable position under his arm. It is nice, and it has been a while he was this close to anyone. Rinzler's memories, frayed as they are, reveal that he was close to Clu, but in a way that Tron cannot quite understand. What remains is a very sour note, bitter and longing, and it makes him cringe.

He hides Rinzler's memories somewhere deep: encrypted and secure. He thinks the least he can do for Rinzler is not to forget him completely.

They sit on the balcony for a long while. The Grid can wait.


End file.
